Client Count vs. Performance

[julio.aldana]

Hello everyone.

I'd like to know your experience regarding how client count affects performance.

What I have seen in a university network, with a very high client densiity, using 3500 APs, is that around 55 clients ping reply time gets over 200 ms; around 60 users there's packet loss; then, as CC increases, somewhere between 60 - 70 the service gets totally lost. Off course, this depends on bandwidth consumption per user, interference, etc.

Also, I'd like to know what we could expect from 802.11ac regarding this topic. Is there any information on tests, or some estimation already published?

Thanks. And sorry if my enghlish is not good enough.

[Scott Fella]

Julio,

The one bug issue is the APs gigabit port being the bottle neck along with wireless being half duplex. If you search this forum you will see that the recommended clients per AP is 25. This will still get you good performance but avian it depends on what the clients applications are. Heavy downloads or uploads can skew your testing. I have tested multiple uploads of video files (3GB in 30 minutes) and only was able to accomplish this with up to 5 devices on the AP. So it doesn't matter if its non 802.11n, 802.11n or AC, wireless is half duplex and you still acts like a hub.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[George Stefanick]

Julio,

Welcome to CSC.

I agree with Scotts statement. Although 802.11ac will allow clients transmissions to trigger at a faster PHY, it is still half duplex. Also, 802.11ac will need to be backward compatible to 802.11g and so on. Unless you have a full 802.1ac environment, your performance will suffer from backward compatibly support.

__________________________________________________________________________________________
"Satisfaction does not come from knowing the solution, it comes from knowing why." - Rosalind Franklin
__________________________________________________________________________________________
‎"I'm in a serious relationship with my Wi-Fi. You could say we have a connection."